Steve Jobs’s Sister: Love Was His Virtue

Mona Simpson, popular author and sister of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, shared her eulogy for her brother in the Sunday New York Times. She characterized her brother as very caring and as a man that took love very seriously.

“Steve was like a girl in the amount of time he spent talking about love. Love was his supreme virtue, his god of gods,” Ms. Simpson said. “He tracked and worried about the romantic lives of the people working with him.”

She added that he was humble, and liked learning. He once told her that had he grown up differently he probably would’ve been a mathematician.

Mr. Jobs passed away on October 5 following a prolonged health battle brought on by a metastatic pancreas neuroendocrine tumor. Mr. Jobs was diagnosed with the tumor in 2003, and later received a liver transplant, too.

During his time in the hospital, she said he still pushed himself, even if only to take a few more steps down the hall while working to regain his strength.

“I realized during that terrifying time that Steve was not enduring the pain for himself,” Ms. Simpson said. “He set destinations: his son Reed’s graduation from high school, his daughter Erin’s trip to Kyoto, the launching of a boat he was building on which he planned to take his family around the world and where he hoped he and Laurene would someday retire.”

And in the end, she said, he passed away at home with his family around him.